Corruption masqueraded as reform?

A few weeks ago, we queried a lot of people in town. We wanted to know who–or what group of people–was the brainchild behind the famous One Levee Board campaign. We knew that “Citizens for 1” led the campaign to get statewide support for the new levee board legislation, but who was the creator or creators? No one could answer our question.

According to Clancy, the Greater New Orleans Business Council was the driver, and perhaps the brainchild, of the One Levee Board campaign. We checked the Business Council’s website. It says it “played a key role in the reorganization of levee board governance by championing the creation of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority“

We're interested in this because the One Levee Board campaign took place long before the investigative studies were complete. It took place long before anyone fully understood why the Greater New Orleans flooded so badly. The campaign pulled attention away from the true culprits–the engineers and commanders at the Army Corps of Engineers–and focused attention on the pre-Katrina Orleans Levee Board which, to this day, has not been found guilty of wrong doing pertaining to the Flood.

But, at the time, this was 2006, we thought, well, this new paradigm of levee board governance "couldn't hurt" and we supported it fully.

Now Clancy Dubos's post appears to say the “reformers” were not truly interested in reform, but rather, that they were interested in controlling who served on the shiny new Levee Authorities.